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4 Things To Check Before You Register A Domain Name

If you are serious about your new website, you understand that your domain name is going to be your brand name, so think twice before you register one. A while ago I wrote a post on this topic giving some practical tips how to create or brand your domain name. And now a follow up to this – no matter how much you may like your newly invented domain name, you should first check if there are no hidden issues that might be invisible at the moment. I usually use 4 tricks to make sure I am going to have no problems with a domain name:

1. Google for it:

search for both [domainname] and [domain name] to see if Google considers it a typo; if yes – that’s a bad sign. Bare in mind, that each time a surfer who already knows about you but uses Google to reach you [and you will be surprised to see how many people actually search Google for a domain name instead of going directly to the site] and sees that did-you-mean-x message, you risk losing a valuable visitor who really meant to find you. All your branding efforts can come to nothing just because you’ve overlooked this tiny detail.

search for [domain name] to evaluate how hard that will be for you to manage your brand/reputation. For example, tourwiki.com looks nice if you are planning a nice site on traveling but cannot be branded effectively just because if you search for ‘tour wiki‘, you see en.wikipedia.org [yeah, quite naturally] at the top – can you compete with it? Probably, not.

2. Check what your domain name may be associated with. Ebay is a good way to search for word associations. I also often check urban dictionary to make sure the word has no negative connotation in the Internet, school or urban slang. [did you know that ‘lex‘ means ‘Rolex‘, well, maybe you did, but it simply never occurred to me 🙂 ]

3. Make sure both plural and singular forms are available and better register both. You don’t want to let your direct visitors go to your competitor who is a lucky owner of domainnameS.com (pl) website while you own domainname.com (sg), do you?

This won’t take you more than 5 minutes to use the tips above but let me tell you – it’s much better to try to foresee potential problems than find out about them when it’s already too late: your website is live, has accumulated some links and enjoys its natural growth.

We’ve purchased over 100 names that are variations on our company’s name and the service we provide. After 7 years in business, I found today that someone has bought (in December 07) a name similar to the URL for our main website, but without an “s”. I think the domain was being cyber-squatted on in the past, but we didn’t catch it when it was available.

We have had other parties offer to sell us variations on our name but our attorney said to forget pursuing them, just go out and buy more variations. We did this, but to continue this for every cyber-squatter out there is like playing wack-a-mole.

This all seems like a waste of money, especially with the need to renew domains annually. Ultimately, you can’t brand a URL without tons of legal funding behind you — because it’s possible for other parties to simply add an “s” or some dashes and have nearly the same name as yours — and still not be guilty of typo-squatting.

Back to this person who bought a name similar to ours. Any tips on how to get the name without alerting the person to become an opportunist and charge us an arm and a leg?

Another one: Make sure the domain wasn’t banned because of a previous owner. We’ve managed to get back into the index, but we’re still a whopping PR 0 even though there’s lots of good content and backlinks.

@Gunjan Pandya: Thank you for sphinning!
@Marios Alexandrou: With one of my domains (about 400 uniques per day) it shows a typo for a year now, so it can take quite long. I guess things might be much quicker if you run an Adwords campaign with your domain/brand domain to show Google that it really means something (never tried to do that myself but I heard that it helped).
@Hjortur Smarason: Yes, 2+1+1 (2 tips in one) make it 4 🙂
@Lieven Vandenbroucke: many thanks for your thumbs up!
@Barista33: I tried to email you asking for some details but delivery failed.
@Rob: Lol 🙂
@Don Draper: you are rights, many thanks for your awesome additions!

I’d like to add: beware of *where* you search for domain availability or your not so nice registrar will take the domain for you (or will let a friend do it or will ask on other whois databases than its, where servers are sniffing requests).
It could result in domain parking, squatting and other nasty consequences …

A note on the misspelling statement. A domain that I recently bought was listed initially with a “spelling suggestion”. After my site was spidered and external links began pointing to it – Google stopped making suggestions.

Right you are, and this is especially true for inter-cultural communication, when words in different languages are associated with completely different things. (Remember the Mitsubishi Pajero[=mast*****or in Spanish] or Ford Pinto[=pe*is in Portuguese] fun?)

So when deciding on your brand name, take some time to Google for its meanings worldwide.

BTW – ZaZa means “plenty” – and we didn’t know that until we registered the domain :))

great ideas. I hate my domain name. I actually hated every name I ever created. In the beginning when I first created it, it seemed to work, Then, after some time as my site developed it seemed stupid and irrelevant. The sometimes the name seemed to make sense again. I think the important thing is to name your site based on the intrinsic content. The further you stray away from that to be cute or accepted the more trouble you get into. The reason people closely copy accepted brand names is to shorten the curve to profitability. A lot of times business people forget that foolery is a short term strategy. Solid needed products with differentiation is king. You can call your site MUDD, but without a decent product and delivery system you’re dead in the water. (Wait..Mudd is a successful product) Bad example. It’s just that so many brands have been established by now, and on top of it companies buy domains by the thousands now, so all your left with is adding suffixes etc. to words. It’s not even a strategy, but a built it function when you just trying to sign up for yahoo or Twitter with the name FruitLoops. It says, “Try again, We suggest FRUITLOOPIES.” lol

Thanks for great advice, the wrong domain selection can get you into trouble and cause you much difficulty later on. Most importantly, a right domain name selection may increase your opportunities for getting better Search Engine Results Page (SERP) rankings. Taking time to research and learn the history of your domain will be imperative to your long-term success. keep on the good work !